Results for "Clarinet"

Bob Wilber

Born: March 15, 1928

Robert Sage Wilber, clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator, was born in New York City on March 15, 1928. He grew up in a musical household and recalls being fascinated with Ellington's recording of "Mood Indigo" at the age of three. In 1935, Wilber moved to Scarsdale, NY and at 13 he began formal clarinet study. He started playing jazz in high school and often visited New York City's 52nd Street absorbing the music of traditional jazzmen such as Pee Wee Russell, Sidney Bechet, Muggsy Spanier, and modern jazzmen Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker. Early on, he dedicated his life to jazz at the expense of formal college studies. Wilber studied with Sidney Bechet in 1946, living with him for several months and sitting in with him occasionally at Jimmy Ryan's

Perry Robinson

Born: August 17, 1938

Perry Morris Robinson (born September 17, 1938) is an American free jazz and klezmer clarinettist, an author, and the son of composer and folk singer Earl Robinson. Robinson was born in New York City. After college he went to the Lenox School of Music in 1959. He did some of his early work with Henry Grimes on his first record, Funk Dumpling (with Grimes, Paul Motian and Kenny Barron), and Grimes' The Call (an association revived since Grimes's re-emergence). His uniquely effervescent tone is the result of his unusual double embouchure. Since 1973 he has been working with Jeanne Lee and Gunter Hampel's Galaxy Dream Band

Ken Peplowski

Born: May 23, 1959

“When you grow up in Cleveland, Ohio, playing in a Polish polka band, you learn to think fast on your feet”, says Ken Peplowski, who played his first pro engagement when he was still in elementary school. “From my first time performing in public, I knew I wanted to play music for a living.”

Ken, and his trumpet-playing brother Ted, made many local radio and TV appearances and played for Polish dances and weddings virtually every weekend all through high-school. “That’s where I learned to improvise, ‘fake’ songs, learn about chord changes, etc.- it’s exactly like learning to swim by being thrown into the water!”

Jimmie Noone

Born: April 23, 1895

Jimmie Noone is considered one of the best clarinetists of the Roaring Twenties. His style differs from the other two great New Orleans clarinet players, Johnny Dodds and Sidney Bechet because of his smoother, more romantic tone. Noone's style was a major influence on the Swing music of the Thirties and Forties. Growing up in New Orleans Jimmie took clarinet lessons from Lorenzo Tio Jr. and Sidney Bechet (Bechet was 13 years old at the time). Noone went on to play with Freddie Keppard in the Olympia Band. In 1917 he followed Freddie to Chicago to join Keppard's Original Creole Orchestra

Phil Nimmons

Born: June 3, 1923

Paulo Moura

Born: February 15, 1929

One of Brazil's best proponents and keepers of the gafieira tradition (popular ballrooms historically linked to the Carioca folklore tradition of highly artistic and swinging dancing and playing) and one of the best choro players, Paulo Moura is an internationally awarded musician whose high standards make it easy for him to cross boundaries between classical and popular music, both performing and arranging in small ensembles or large symphonic orchestras. As a conductor, orchestrator, and arranger for famous Brazilian singers, he includes in his resumé works for Elis Regina, Fagner, Taiguara, Milton Nascimento, and Marisa Monte

Mezz Mezzrow

Born: November 9, 1899

Mezz Mezzrow was born in Chicago in 1899 and was one of that city's most popular clarinetists during the golden jazz age of the twenties. Many of Mezzrow's records reveal his deep feeling for the blues and his playing is characterized by well-thought lines, frequent agility and an appealingly acid tone, but despite touring regularly with various bands and with Louis Armstrong, his most notable contribution to jazz history is his autobiography, Really the Blues, written with Bernard Wolfe, first published in 1946. It is its unbounded vitality that so captures the revolution which jazz represented to the youth of Chicago in the twenties, and even more that of Harlem in the thirties and forties. He learned to play the saxophone in the Potomac Reformatory School where he was sentenced at the age of 16 for car theft

Bennie Maupin

Born: August 29, 1940

Bennie Maupin is best-known for his atmospheric bass clarinet playing on Miles Davis' classic Bitches Brew album, as well as other Miles Davis recordings such as Big Fun, Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. He was a founding member of Herbie Hancock's seminal band The Headhunters, as well as a performer and composer in Hancock's influential Mwandishi band. Born in 1940, Maupin started playing clarinet, later adding saxophone, flute, and, most notably, the bass clarinet to his formidable arsenal of woodwind instruments. Upon moving to New York in 1962, he freelanced with groups led by Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, and Chick Corea, and played regularly with Roy Haynes and Horace Silver

Michael Marcus

Born: August 25, 1952

Michael Marcus has been an active member of the New York jazz scene for over twenty five years. In the 1980's and 1990's Michael became a prominent figure on the "free jazz" scene...while always staying connected to the tradition! Since releasing his debut recording as a leader, "Under The Wire" for Enja in 1991, he has continued to be part of the cutting edge in American improvised music, touring the festival and club circuits both in the US and Europe, as well as appearing on over thirty records for Soul Note, Justin' Time, Not Two, Boxholder, CIMP & Qwest/Warner

Harlan Leonard

Born: July 2, 1905

Harlan Leonard was an American jazz bandleader and clarinetist from Kansas City, Missouri.

Leonard was born in Kansas City in 1905. A professional musician from the age of 17, he joined Benny Moten's orchestra in 1923, where he led the reed section until 1931. In 1931 he and Thamon Hayes formed the Kansas City Skyrockets, which included trumpeters Ed Lewis and James Ross, trombonist Vic Dickenson, and pianist Jesse Stone. After disputes with the Chicago local of the American Federation of Musicians the band broke up.

In 1939 Leonard formed Harlan Leonard and his Rockets, which featured a young Myra Taylor